Step 3 (Continued)
C: This Step has some words in it that are
very, very important. Again if we don't understand those words, as the
writer meant for us to understand them, any idea that we're going to get
is going to be garbled. The Step itself, Step Three, as we talk about it,
it says, we made a decision. I think it's important that we look at the
word decision.
I've heard so many people say, well, I've been in A.
A. four, five, six, eight, ten years. My life's all screwed up. I'm still
not happy, and I don't understand why. Because I turned my will over to
God when I took Step Three, seven years ago, or three years ago, or two
years ago. I don't believe we turn it over in Step Three.
I think we make a decision to turn it over. Decision
means and implies further action. A decision is simply what it says, a
decision to do something. But we can make a decision over and over and
over and over and take no action on it, and everything is going to remain
identically the same.
I think one of the best examples of that is my wife
Barbara and I, we decided to go to California every Fall for about eight
years in a row. But we never did get to California, because we never took
any action to carry out that decision. Now, here about three years ago, we
made that same decision to go to California.
This time I took the car down and I had it serviced.
Barbara packed the clothes, and we put them in the car. Then we drove from
my house to Tulsa, Oklahoma, then to Oklahoma City, then to Amarillo, then
to Albuquerque, then to Flagstaff. You know, by Golly, we ended up in Los
Angles, California.
We had made the decision repeatedly over and over and
over and had never taken any action until that year. Therefore, we had
never gotten to California until that year.
I think in Step Three, all we're going to do is make
a decision. We're going to decide to turn our will and our life over to
the care of God as we understood Him. I think we're going to need to look
at the word "will," and I think we're going to need to look at
the word "life."
I didn't understand what will was. Today, I kind of
understand that will is my thinking apparatus. Will is my mind. Will is
the thing that tells me what to do. I was scared to death when I came to
A.A. about turning this thing over to this God as I understand Him,
because I didn't know what God would have me be. I went to my sponsor and
I said, man, I don't believe I can take Step Three. He said, how come?
I said, if I turn my thinking, my will, my mind over
to the care of God as I understand Him, I don't know what God would want
me to be, what He would want me to do. He may want me to be a missionary
in Africa, or China, and I sure as hell don't want to be that.
And he just laughed. He said, Charlie, at least it
wouldn't be at the hands of an idiot, would it? (laughter) He said, let's
look back in your life. He said you've always been a self-willed person.
You've always done exactly what you've wanted to do, whenever you wanted
to do it, regardless of what it did to anybody else. He said, the great
result, the great reward you get for living that kind of life, is that you
got to become a member of Alcoholics Anonymous.
I look back in my life today, and I realize what my
problem has always been. My thinking, my will, my mind has always been
rather faulty. Not just in regards to alcohol, but a lot of other things
as well. Always before I would do something, I had to think about it
first. The body cannot take action without the mind telling it, it's okay
to do that.
My thinking has always been rather faulty. Based upon
faulty thinking, I made some very, very bad decisions. Based upon bad
decisions, I took some very, very bad actions. Those actions resulted in a
living hell for me. My sponsor said to me, he said, just think, if God
could direct your thinking, then maybe it would become better. And he
said, if it became better, then maybe your decisions would become better.
Then maybe your actions would become better. Then maybe you would have a
better life, and you wouldn't be in trouble all the time.
I made a decision to turn my will, my thinking
apparatus, and my life, over to the care of God as I understood Him. Now,
what is my life? Well, my life is nothing more than my actions. My life
today is the cumulative total of all of the actions that I've taken
throughout my lifetime. They have determined what my life is right now.
Now with faulty thinking and bad decisions and bad actions, my life has
always been screwed up.
But if God directs my thinking, and if my decisions
become better, and my actions become better, then my life is going to
become better. I think that's all I'm really trying to really do in Step
Three, is to turn this thinking apparatus over to God in the hopes that my
life improves'
(End
of Side B of Tape 4)
